| (1967) While many of us were surfing to the Beach Boys or dreaming of Strawberry Fields Forever, Robert Moog was hard at work in his laboratory buidling a machine that would change music history. In his first incarnation of the synthesizer, a sound was produced by physically plugging one synthesizer module into another. It was impossible to store a wiring configuration since the machine lacked any memory so if a desirable sound was created, a record of how to replicate it had to be written down on paper. The synthesizer could only play one note at a time, therefore, no chords were possible, but an infinite number of sounds could be created by manually changing the configuration. |  |
| Milestones in the History of Electronic Music | |
| (1971) In 1971, four years of work at miniaturization resulted in a breakthrough for travelling bands. The first portable pre-wired synthesizer was invented. As a resulted it was not necessary to plug in modules to get a sound, but this revolutionary device was still monophonic and without memory. |
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| (1975) Again after four years of research and development the first synthesizers capable of producing more than one sound at a time was produced. The OBERHEIM SEM was a commercially available polyphonic modular synthesizer. With these early polyphonic synthesizers a musician could play 2, 4, 6 or even 8 notes at the same time, depending on the models. One synthesizer was necessary for each note and was connected through the Expander Module. At this time the first machines with memories emerged, but each module could only store a couple of parameters! (The machine had only 16 memory slots). |  |
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| (1978) Finally in 1978 the first fully programmable, polyphonic synthesizers were produced. These devices were capable of producing 5 tones at once and had 32 memory slots to record synthesizer parameters for using during performances. |
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(1982) The bass synthesizer went down in the histroy books with the emergence of Techno Music in 1987. The ROLAND - TB 303 helped to produce new sounds for a new era in music. (1982)
Also in 1982 then first MIDI synthesizer was released. |
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| (1984) The PPG - WAVE 2.2 and 2.3 gave musicians a new bag of tricks. These synthesizers were the first to combine digital wave shapes which are essentially basic sounds with subtractive analog synthesis treatments. The ancestors of the samples used in the original synthesizers could be transformed to produce an infinite array of sounds. Sound engineers could also create orrevise the wave shapes on a screen called a Waveterm. |  |
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| (1995) The NORD LEAD keyboard marked the return of subtractive synthesis. The process is like the analog synthesizers but digitally modeled (through the use of calculus). This keyboard provided the return of the front buttons, long awaited by a new generation of musicians and the possibility to record each potentiometer movement in MIDI enhance the musicians ability to edit the sounds. |
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| (1996) SEER - REALITY was one of the first affordable computer program dedicated to sound synthesis. It combined several types of synthesis, including subtractive synthesis, FM and additive synthesis. It offered musicians a new tool for creative expression. |
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| (2000) ARTURIA releases STORM MUSIC STUDIO. The virtual embodiment of former synthesizers. The Storm Music Studio offers software synthesis at its best and provides a wide variety of instruments. In the latest version most of the modules have been redesigned and enhanced. Ventura Educational Systems offers Storm 2.0 to qualified academic customers at a considerable discount. |  |
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| *adapted from http://www.arturia.com/en/synth.html |